


Begin Again

by Mercarie



Series: Begin Again [1]
Category: Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Series, guys i've been planning this series for a year, less angst next chapter i swear, take this from me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-31
Updated: 2017-01-31
Packaged: 2018-09-21 01:09:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9524858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mercarie/pseuds/Mercarie
Summary: "The sun had never felt as good as it did that morning, though it burned and stung her eyes like she couldn’t believe. It warmed her chilled skin, dried the tears from her cheeks.The sole survivor of Vault 111, terrified of the new, strange world before her, had surfaced."Marie Thompson, General of the Minutemen, Brotherhood Paladin, makes a life for herself in a ripped apart and pieced back together Boston. Part one of quite a long series.





	

Marie never knew the sun could shine as blindingly bright as it did then.  
She’d stumbled from her pod for the first time in two centuries weak-kneed, bleary-eyed, falling across the space between herself and her late husband rather than walking it, gagging on the smell of liquid left stagnant that pooled on the floor and dripped from the ceiling’s metallic tubing. The harsh artificial Vault lighting glared off the concrete floors and metal surfaces and into her eyes, blinding her as she groped for what she hoped would open Church’s pod.  
_I’m not giving you Shaun!_ echoed in her ears as she fumbled at the controls. Those had been his last words, she realized, yelled as he fought to keep their infant son in his arms. _I’m not giving you Shaun!_ Then a gunshot, Shaun wailing, Marie’s fists banging uselessly against the pod window. The man with the scarred face, inches away, _inches_ from her fist down his throat. And then...nothing.  
“Those bastards, those goddamn cowards,” she growled to herself, choked fury that hitched when the latch finally clicked, the door separating her from Church lifting in a cloud of cool air. Marie took in the frost-coated corpse, his blood long since frozen on the foam headrest, and with shaking hands reached for one of his.  
“Church…” His name came out as a low moan that wobbled in her throat and suffocated her, her tears scalding hot against still-icy cheeks. “Oh, god, no. Please, no.”  
She stayed like that for a long time, his lifeless hand held gently in her fingers, tracing the veins beneath his skin and melting the cold away. Everything felt surreal, fictitious, as if this was a fever dream and soon she’d wake to find everything as she’d left it. _But this is not a dream_ , she reminded herself bitterly, grief and rage wrapping themselves around her like blankets of lead, a second skin that seemed to settle into her bones. Somehow, his hand in hers made that slightly more bearable, slightly easier to understand. His hand was cold and wet but it was _his_ , and she found herself threading her fingers through his as she’d idly done so many times before, scrubbing at her tears with the arm of her Vault suit.  
“I’m going to find who did this,” Marie vowed in a small, trembling voice, “and I’m going to get Shaun back. I promise.”  
The sun had never felt as good as it did that morning, though it burned and stung her eyes like she couldn’t believe. It warmed her chilled skin, dried the tears from her cheeks.  
The sole survivor of Vault 111, terrified of the new, strange world before her, had surfaced. 

                                  • • •

“Come on, we’ve got to leave. We’ve got to leave _now_ , General.” Preston was tugging at her arm, trying to coax her into action, the panic rising in his voice. “I’m not going to pretend to know what you’re going through, okay? But there is _shooting_ downstairs, and people, _good_ people, will be hurt if we don’t leave. Marie, _please_.”  
She’d found him. Dying, maybe, cancer the Institute had no cure for snuffing out whatever life still clung to his tired body, but she’d finally found Shaun. He was an old man now, no longer the child his father had died defending, and though the light had long since faded from eyes the same chocolate brown as his mother’s, Marie found herself gripping the arm of his sweater like she could will him back to life.  
_He hated me_ , she thought. _It was all over at Mass Fusion. He knew I’d chosen the Brotherhood over him. I wonder what he felt, knowing the mother he welcomed with open arms had turned against him long before she’d ever found his legacy. I wonder if he knew that, at one point, I considered joining his cause. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Shaun. Director just doesn’t suit me. I’m the-_  
“General!” Preston urged.  
_I could never have been both._  
She bent down to kiss her son, his cheek still warm beneath her lips, and whispered a wavering goodbye against his skin.  
With a sigh, Marie pulled herself free of Preston’s grip and straightened herself to her full height, turning to face him. Her soft tone hardened, slipped back into one of authority and command. “Let’s go.”  
The battle toward Advanced Systems felt oddly, almost comfortingly familiar, the gatling laser she’d purchased from Proctor Teagan on a whim after being christened Paladin scorching everything in its path. Marie had seldom had eyes for another firearm since, the impressive heft and size of the gatling like an old friend in the Commonwealth, and as she watched legions of synths crumple like paper before her and her brothers-in-arms she silently thanked Teagan for suggesting the two-thousand cap investment to her one of her visits to the Prydwen. It had saved her life more times than she could remember, and though she’d never admit it she’d given it a name. It was even scratched into the green paint of the barrel in tiny letters: ‘Tempest.’  
“Get to the reactor!” Preston was shouting, risking a glance at Marie through the haze of gunfire. “You have the fusion pulse charges?”  
Marie nodded hurriedly, fishing it out of a pocket sewn into her armor and sliding the reactor door open. _This is it_ , she thought as she slapped it into place. _No going back now.  No going back, period._  
“Preston!” she called, pointing toward the reactor. “They’re set!”  
The butt of his musket connected with the jagged, destroyed plastic of a synth strider’s cheekbone as she spoke, drowning her words in the crunch of crushed machinery. “What?”  
“It’s finished, we can leave!”  
“Thank god,” he muttered, a tired relief in his voice.  
Marie was momentarily blinded by the bright blue and white that swelled to fill and overwhelm her vision as Sturges relayed them to the room where she’d first arrived all those months ago, blinking to clear the blur when she felt her boots find purchase on solid ground. Preston arrived a moment later, equally disoriented by the looks of it, and almost immediately his mouth set into a confused frown. It dawned on Marie that she was still staring at Institute white; Sturges hadn’t relayed them to the demolition site yet.  
“All right Sturges, we’re done. Get us the hell out of here,” Preston ordered.  
“I would’ve man, but...this kid showed up,” came his puzzled reply.  
Marie hardly had time to process what he was saying before small arms threw themselves around her middle and an even smaller voice pleaded against her scuffed armor, “Please, mom...don’t leave me here! I want to go with you!”  
_Mom?_ Marie froze in the circle of those tiny arms. _Mo- who the hell?_ Briefly it occurred to her that maybe some Institute child had been left behind when she issued the evacuation order, but she swiftly dismissed it; the parents of the Institute were neglectful, but they couldn’t possibly be _that_ neglectful. Even still, Marie soothingly smoothed her hand over the child’s hair and hooked a finger beneath their chin, praying she’d seen enough of the Institute’s children to be able to identify one of them.  
The boy offered no resistance and tilted his head up in response, clean chestnut-brown hair parting to either side of his face, and suddenly Marie could see her startled reflection in his wide, hopeful eyes. _The same chocolate brown as his mother’s. The same chocolate brown as my son’s._  
“Shaun,” she choked.  
“ _Shaun_?” Preston echoed, his eyebrows shooting up and practically off his face. “But he just...we…”  
Marie looked to him helplessly, groping for the correct words to explain, but all she could muster finally was a dazed, “This is my son.”  
“Hi,” Shaun piped up.  
Gently, Marie gripped the boy’s shoulders and held him at arm’s length, studying his face. _Father’s_ face. Father, when he was young and sweet and curious, not yet the calculating, amoral monster she’d found as a grown man. When Father was still only Shaun.  
“Why did you call me ‘mom’?” she asked hesitantly, realizing as she said it how odd it must sound. Marie found it hard to believe that this was the same boy that shrank away from her in terror when she’d first relayed into the Institute, screaming for her to leave, for Father to save him. She winced at the memory.  
“What? You’re my mother!” Shaun insisted. “Why else would I call you that?”  
“Right.” _What has Father done to him?_ “Of course. I’m your mother.” Even to her the words were stilted and clumsy, but Shaun relaxed in her grip all the same.  
“Good,” he chirped. “For a second I thought you forgot who I was. Now let’s hurry up and get out of here!”  
Though she both did and didn’t expect it, Marie found herself taken suddenly by the same overwhelming maternal love for the ten year-old replication of the adult son she’d said her goodbyes to only minutes before as she felt when she thought she’d finally found him, wanting now more than ever to gather what amounted to Father’s pet project in her arms and make him feel safe and wanted. Even after two centuries and a long, arduous trek through hell, Marie had never stopped being a mother. A mother of a different sort, perhaps, building defenses far past sufficient to ensure her people could sleep soundly, long afternoons spent tweaking weapons and armor so they’d have a fighting chance if she were to be bested by some beast on a trip through the less forgiving parts of the Commonwealth. A mother to her people in this angry, violent new world, and now a mother to the son she’d scoured the whole of the wasteland to find.  
_Could you love him?_ Father had asked, hopeful.  
Only now, with her own heart practically leaping from her chest, did she truly know that the answer was _yes._  
_I can._  
“You can come with us.”  
“Really? Do you mean it?”  
“Of course,” she assured him, reaching out a hand to pat and ruffle his hair. Shaun giggled, and Marie found herself smiling at the sound. “Sturges, fire it up.”  
“Didn’t leave anything behind, did you? All set to get out of here?”  
Marie glanced around one final time at the gleaming white sterility of the Institute, and decided that it was definitely something she wouldn’t miss. “Absolutely,” she confirmed. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”  
Sturges explained briefly that the Minutemen would be sent to the detonation site, while Shaun would be taken to and looked after back at the Castle. Surprised at her own reluctance, Marie released Shaun to stand beside Sturges. He waved goodbye, beaming. “You press that button extra hard when you get there,” Sturges added with a grin. “See you on the other side.”  
For the last time, Marie felt as if she were barreling through space and logic itself before feeling the ground materialize beneath her feet with that odd kzzt noise she had never and would never get accustomed to. She recognized it as the Mass Fusion executive suite, mentally chiding herself for immediately peeking over the railing and several stories to the inky unknown of the ground below. The stars were brighter here somehow, closer, pinpoints of startling white on a backdrop of velvety midnight blue. It had to be sometime in the late evening, though Marie didn’t bother to check her Pip-Boy to confirm it. With the whole of Boston spread beneath a star-filled, peaceful sky, she could almost imagine that nothing had changed at all.  
“Sturges figured this was a safe distance outside the blast radius,” Preston explained, breaking through her thoughts and moving to stand by her side. “Whenever you want to see ‘humanity’s best hope for the future’ go up in smoke, just hit that button.”  
Marie’s attention was guided to the red casing immediately in front of them. With suddenly shaking hands, she lifted the plastic cover to reveal a glowing green button underneath. Though it beckoned with an impossibly friendly light, she found herself hesitating.  
This was it.  
_The end times, all over again. The final mission. Everything that’s happened since the Vault, magnified and condensed into a single button._  
“General?”  
Marie could hear the Minutemen behind her shuffling anxiously in the silence. When she peered over her shoulder there were only shadowed faces in their place, muskets glowing red in the darkness to reveal smears of blood and dirt on their uniforms. They were battle-weary, exhausted, but the handful that had made it to the end dared hardly to breathe as they waited for the great terror of the Commonwealth to be put to rest.  
_It ends with a single button._  
Marie was horrified to realize she felt sorry for the Institute scientists.  
“General,” Preston said, no longer a question as he slipped his hand into hers and steadied her, the worn leather of his glove soft against her skin. Marie glanced down to their clasped hands, traced the curve of his arm to his scarred, dirty face. She opened her mouth to speak before closing it again, wordlessly pleading for his reassurance. _Tell me I’m doing the right thing, Preston. Tell me we’re not about to make a horrible mistake. Tell me that clueless Vault-suited girl you met a year ago is really the one that’s supposed to decide the fate of an entire people._  
“Go on,” he encouraged finally in a voice only loud enough for her to hear, and that was enough.  
Marie took a deep breath, stood tall, felt her boots and Preston’s hand secure her to the earth, and with a last fleeting _I’m sorry Shaun, pressed the button._

                                        • • •

Sleep was out of the question tonight.  
Minutemen were clapping her on the back, hollering into the night as they made their way home to the Castle, muskets hanging loosely at their sides. Some walked silent, proud, the realization that the destruction of the Institute was no longer a goal, but a tangible reality that they’d helped to achieve adding a certain sway to their step and spirit in their grin.  
Preston and Marie lagged behind the group, quiet amidst the excited chatter. The two weren’t accustomed to this, the quiet, the halt of the easy conversation that’d led them to become friends, but there was nothing to discuss and no more grand plans to make. This plan had gone off without a hitch, a radioactive crater and dazed, grieving scientists proof of that. Marie felt sick.  
“Holding up?” Preston asked gently.  
She didn’t know how to answer. She should’ve been overjoyed, relieved, triumphant even. Instead, she felt a deep tiredness that bled into her bones, made her feel so much older than twenty-four, as if she’d been awake all those frozen years. She longed for home, a warm bed, Danse and Dogmeat curled up beside her. Home was quite a long way from here, but she’d gladly wander through the night to see the lights of Sanctuary glowing on the horizon.  
“I’ll manage,” she replied with a weak smile. “Ready to go home.”  
“Aren’t we all,” Preston laughed, letting it trail off into silence. After a moment, he started again, though now there was a genuine concern in his voice. “Listen, I hope you don’t mind my asking, but...what happened? Back there, I mean? With the button?”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Marie,” he warned.  
She sighed. “I...I don’t know, okay? I had a minor crisis, I guess. We blew up a building, for chrissake, I think I’m entitled to a crisis.”  
“I suppose,” Preston conceded, frowning.  
“I just...I mean, believe me, I would press that button a thousand times over, okay? The Institute fucked a lot of people over, killed even more, comically evil down to the shiny white structural supports, all that. But we also just...Preston, there’s so many pe-” Marie stopped herself, struggling for the words. “They had good inten-...I’m not great at expressing myself, but it was a crisis.”  
There was a long pause then, so long that Marie began to worry she’d made a mistake in telling him she had ever entertained the possibility the Minutemen were wrong. She all but audibly sighed in relief when he finally spoke, his words slow, carefully chosen.  
“We did what had to be done. You’ve seen how scared people are out there, the shitstorm Diamond City kicks up any time someone even mentions the word ‘synth.’ You said it- the Institute’s been killing wastelanders since the bombs dropped. And now? No one has to be afraid of what’s in the shadows. Not anymore. It’s all thanks to the Minute- well, you, really. The Minutemen have been a joke for a long time, but look at us now. Settlements in every corner of the Commonwealth, people wanting to join again. A General that won’t turn tail and run, that built us up enough to take down the Commonwealth boogeyman. We’ve proved ourselves, General, and everyone’s listening. We’ve done good by the people. That’s what matters.”  
Marie found herself frowning, unsatisfied. Preston was making sense, making valid points, but she envied his moral absolution. Though she tried to reason it had been for the greater good, Marie felt an unwelcome, gnawing guilt. Still, she nodded as if his words had put it to rest.  
“Marie,” he said, grabbing her upper arm to slow her to a stop. “Listen, I’ll get these guys to the Castle. You go home. Get some rest.”  
Immediately, protests bubbled to her lips. “But-”  
”No arguing. Everyone will be okay if you take a night for yourself. Your son will still be there in the morning. You’ve done your job as General. Let me do mine as second-in-command.” With a small smile, Preston brought his hand back to his musket and hurried off to join the rest of the group. Marie watched them amble into the distance until they turned out of sight, taking their laughter with them.  
All at once, Marie felt an odd sort of peace flood her tired, damaged body as she made her way toward home through the early December chill. The cracked streets and long-abandoned storefronts were empty, dark, and though she kept her gatling at the ready there was no need. Her boots against the pavement and her steady heartbeat were the only sounds in the Commonwealth tonight, the city breathing as one sleeping beast as she navigated the rusting paint and hulking metal maze. Hubflowers and gourd blossoms dotted the roads she walked and swayed in the evening breeze. These she plucked absentmindedly, stowing them in the bag at her side.  
Marie eventually found herself deep in the Fens with a bag full of flowers, surrounded by Diamond City guards that greeted her by name. She’d gotten to be a Diamond City regular in the year and change she’d been out of 111, so much so that the merchants had learned to recognize the blue and gold beneath her armor as the promise of good business and new additions to their inventories. Their shops would be closed for the night, but Marie hadn’t come to trade. In fact, she didn’t know why she was here at all. The light had drawn her, she supposed, the warmth and drowsy hum of the normally bustling town luring her in.  
As she descended the metal steps into the town proper, Marie cast a sweeping glance over Diamond City: Nat’s wooden podium, deserted, sat patiently waiting for her return; Takahashi dispensed noodles to a befuddled drifter, who accepted them with unsure, weary movements; Pastor Clements swept the entrance to All Faiths Chapel, humming softly to himself. It was a familiar, safe place she had grown to love.  
“Hey, Pastor,” she called, a fond smile drawing her lips upward.  
The old man looked up briefly from his work before returning to it with a friendly, “Little late to trade, don’tcha think?”  
“Ain’t here for trading, Pastor. Just here to be here.”  
“Sightseeing?” he joked. “Or you come to pay the Chapel a visit?”  
“Actually,” she replied, deciding as she said it, “I’m here for the booze.”  
Pastor Clements chuckled. “Well good luck, Vault Dweller.”  
With a final word and wave goodbye, Marie set out for the Dugout Inn. The narrow alleyways were devoid of people at this time of night, something she was grateful for as she struggled to remember the way to Vadim and Yefim’s. No matter how many times she’d walked these exact paths, the geography of Diamond City always managed to leave her slightly lost. Marie sighed, and tilted her Pip-Boy so the glow illuminated her face in dim green light, the digital clock proudly informing her it was just past one in the morning. Aimlessly, she switched to the sprawling map of Boston programmed into her Pip-Boy and set a marker for home before she got too drunk to.    
Suddenly, Marie felt another body crashing into hers and her own falling to the ground with a painful thump. Instinctively, her hands flew to the strap keeping the gatling secure against her back and, panicking, swept the area around her for something she’d have to use it on. Startled green eyes met her own, and once she realized what had happened she relaxed her grip. Their reflexive responses overlapped each other.  
“God, I’m sorry-”  
“Sorry, are you okay, miss-”  
The drifter leapt to his feet and, pushing long strands of blonde hair out of his face, held out a hand. Marie took it gratefully as his steady stream of profuse apology began. “Geez, I’m sorry, miss. Are you okay? I wasn’t watching, I didn’t think anyone else was out, did I hurt you? I’m sorry-”  
“No, I’m sorry, it was my fault. I was looking at the time and didn’t notice you.” She brushed herself off. “You’re okay?”  
“Yeah. You, uh, you take care now, miss.”    
The drifter flashed her a warm smile and hurried on his way. Marie noticed that dirt still clung to his clothes, though he was in too much of a rush to bother with it as he took the path leading most directly to the city’s exit. He seemed abnormally at ease here, familiar with the city in a way the other drifters weren’t, and briefly she wondered what business he had had before shrugging to herself. He was gone. It didn’t matter, and didn’t get her any closer to a good bottle of whiskey besides.  
Marie nearly cried with relief when the Dugout Inn came into view, cursing herself when she realized how close it was to the entrance and taking a mental note of its location. Pushing the door open, she was greeted by Vadim’s loud, late night chatting and the swell of laughter from sleepless patrons. The couches and chairs sat abandoned, the only life in the lobby being Vadim, a sleepily nodding Yefim, and a trio of caravan hands Marie didn’t recognize that turned at her entrance.  
“Evening,” she called, though their eyes fell first on her, then to the gatling poking up from behind her shoulder, and back to Vadim with no more of a response than an acknowledging grunt.  
“Ah, my friend, be with you in a moment!” Vadim shouted past them, just as cheery at one in the morning as he was at one in the afternoon. Chuckling to herself, Marie took the stool furthest from the three, slipping the strap over her head and leaning the gatling barrel-up against her thigh. She’d long since gotten used to its constant weight between her shoulderblades, but it felt good to set it down and take methodic inventory of her body without it; Marie could feel the bruises forming on her legs, middle, and back where her armor had taken bullets, a particularly nasty one already blushing deep red along her collarbone where a synth had caught her with a stun baton. It was a wonder nothing had broken, though a cauterized laser graze just above the reinforced metal plate strapped to her left thigh probably warranted a visit to Curie’s clinic in Sanctuary. Her lips twitched upward into a small smile as she imagined the lecture she always got about having to be more careful, the chiding, matter-of-fact tone in Curie’s soft voice as she expertly bandaged Marie’s wounds. _Madame Marie, such a state you are in! Do humans always go searching after danger like you? Tsk tsk._  
Marie was so absorbed in her daydream she hardly noticed the sudden quiet of the caravan hands and their huddled, conspiratorial whispers in Vadim’s absence until their fleeting glances toward her grew longer and less discreet. Only when one of them caught her narrowed gaze for longer than could be considered accidental did she ask, annoyed, “There something I can help you with?”  
“You’re the Vault Dweller,” the man furthest from her said without the hint of a question.  
Marie tugged at the wrist of her blue and gold Vault suit, slightly lifting her hand off the counter before letting it drop. “You don’t say.”  
“They say you came out of the Vault over by Sanctuary trying to find your boy, that you were frozen for what, something like two hundred years?”  
“That’s right.”  
The man nodded, ran a hand through hair so caked with dust it almost looked clean. The woman beside him, hunched over and leaning on her arms, piped up after a long silence. “Nice piece, sister. What’d it run you for?”  
Marie warily brought the gatling closer, wrapping her hand tightly around one of the barrels. “Something to the tune of a couple thousand caps. Ain’t keen on losing it, if that’s what you’re getting at.”  
“No, no. Nothing like that,” the woman assured her. “Just...only seen that kind of piece on Brotherhood.”  
“That a problem?”  
“Aren’t you General of the Minutemen, something like that?” the third caravan hand chimed in, his voice thick and slurred. “What business does a lady like you got with those tin can Brotherhood bastards? Shouldn’t you be playing Revolutionary dress-up, or whatever?”  
“You questioning my loyalties? ‘Cause I’m just here for the whiskey.” _And I’ve already hurt enough people for the both of us today. Don’t make me want to hurt more._  
“Look, sister, you got us all wrong,” the woman started again, cautiously eyeballing Marie’s white-knuckled fist around the gatling’s barrel. “Just making conversation.”  
“All the wrong kinds, if you ask me.”  
Vadim returned from the back room then, bottles clinking in his arms. The tension in the room was thick enough to cut with a knife, but this seemed to be lost on Vadim as he happily restocked the counter. “Vault Dweller! Long time no see, eh? What, you don’t like Vadim anymore? Haha, I kid, what can I get you?”  
“Whiskey, was it?” the woman cut in apologetically before she could answer, fishing caps out of the now-unconscious third man’s pocket. “She’ll have a bottle, on Bill.”  
“Nice of him,” Vadim joked as the woman set the caps on the counter and slid from her stool, pulling Bill to his feet (“get up, you fucking idiot, _get up_ ,” she hissed) and half-dragged him across the room and past Yefim. The slam of a door could be heard a few moments later from somewhere far back in the Inn.  
Marie snorted as Vadim set the bottle of whiskey in front of her alongside a clean glass, though her amusement faded once she remembered why she was here with a bottle in the first place. God, she didn’t belong here. She should’ve been home with Danse and Mac and Dogmeat, not drinking alone in a nearly empty bar, her Vault suit singed and spattered in blood that was only partially her own. She toyed with the cap, twirling it in her fingers before taking a swig and it burned horribly in her throat, but the burn felt better than the nauseous sick feeling pooling in the pit of her stomach and so she took a longer, deeper drink and stifled a cough as it seared its way down her throat. Barring a moment’s hesitation, she turned the glass over with a heavy _clunk_. There’d be no need for it.  
The remaining caravan hand cast a sidelong glance her way before calling Vadim over, then ordered a beer for himself and turned to Marie with an amiable, “Drinking to forget, friend?”  
“More than you could possibly know,” she answered softly, staring into the amber liquid clasped in her small  hands. She’d forgotten he was there, but now that he was trying to strike up a conversation she found herself surprised at his friendliness. “Y’know, I don’t generally peg you lot as the chatty type.”  
“We aren’t,” he agreed with a shrug.  
Marie studied him for a long moment then, puzzled by the lack of default hostility she’d seen in nearly every caravan hand she’d had the misfortune to cross, but not altogether resigned to drinking alone. He seemed harmless enough, though it was not without a small measure of trepidation that she extended a hand toward him. “Marie. Minuteman General, Brotherhood Paladin.”  
“Andy,” he responded, moving to occupy the seat beside her and give her hand a single sure shake. “Nothing with anyone important. Mostly paid to look tough, if I’m being honest.”  
“Yeah, you and your friends got me shaking in my boots,” Marie said drily.  
“Listen, don’t mind Bill. He’s a good man, but that mouth of his is bound to earn him a bullet.”  
“This tin can Brotherhood bastard’ll drink to that.”  
                                                                                                          • • •

 _“They call you the Sole Survivor,” Andy had slurred, four empty beer bottles and half a bottle of whiskey standing between them. She had the vague recollection of blushing red cheeks beneath a carpet of fair stubble, his fingers tangled in the hair on one side of his head. “Wastelanders call you a lot of things, you know. Vault Dweller. Miss 111. Mama bear on the goddamn warpath.”_  
“I prefer Marie.”  
Marie held the empty bottle to her face, inspecting with undue fascination how the warm lantern light illuminating the bridge into Sanctuary shone through the thick glass. With a moment’s consideration, she reared back and threw the bottle as hard as she could into the night.  
_“You got family?” Her tongue thick in her mouth, head lolling heavy on one hand. The counter covered in a blurry forest of brown glass bottles._  
“Brother and his kid lived in Quincy before...well, uh, let’s just say I don’t anymore.” A silent beat. A gentle hand on the leather of his jacket. Marie squeezed his shoulder and, throwing a few caps on the counter, grabbed him another beer from behind the counter. Andy took it gratefully, blinking the sudden glossy sheen from blue bloodshot eyes.  
“To family,” she said, and downed the rest of her bottle.  
God, she couldn’t face anyone in town like this. The screen of her powered-down Pip-Boy returned an image of flushed, dirt-smeared cheeks and disheveled hair that didn’t register as her own face through the alcohol-soaked haze. Marie sighed and switched it back on. Sanctuary was expecting their leader home, their hero, but how would she explain the stench of cheap booze still clinging to her Vault suit like she didn’t feel like the most wretched woman to walk the Commonwealth? What kind of coward would they think her to be, finding comfort in liquor when she shouldn’t need to seek comfort at all?  
Though she knew her fears came from a place swimming in whiskey rather than experience, Marie decided not to go into town tonight. Things would surely make more sense in the morning, when the sun was up and things didn’t wobble quite as much.  
_The damn numbers kept blurring together. It could just as easily be three in morning as noon, the lack of windows in the Dugout Inn only adding to the sense that time had halted completely. The Bobrov brothers had long since retired to their rooms, but she and Andy were still saying their goodbyes._  
“You should come back with me to Sanctuary. Meet everyone. They’re just...oh, Andy, they’re the most wonderful people.”  
“Come back with you? What, le-leave my...Marie, this ain’t much but caps are caps. Man’s gotta eat, sister.”  
“No, no, you misunderstand. We’re a big town. Lots of jobs, places to earn caps, be useful. It’s nothing to build another bed, get our doc to train you as her assistant, maybe hire you to help Henry and June down in the tavern. Look, it might be the liquor talking but I’m feeling like you’re a good man, Andy, and there’s a home for you in Sanctuary if you want it. No more renting rooms, no more worrying about where your next meal’s coming from. A reliable job and a home to come back to.”  
Andy stayed quiet for a long while, tapping his broken fingernails on the empty bottle in his hand.  
“I mean, I don’t need an answer now. Just something to think about. Maybe wait to answer till we’re not drunk, I dunno. But Sanctuary is there when and if you want to be part of it.”  
“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you?” he asked then, quietly.  
Marie stared him hard in the face before turning to rummage through her bag. Retrieving a notepad and pencil, she began to scribble a note. “Come to Sanctuary, show this to the guards at the front gate. You’ll see exactly how much I’m fucking around then.”  
Still-clothed skeletons littered the path to Vault 111, strewn haphazard and untouched. Marie avoided them as well as she could with a walk that was mostly a stagger. Maybe one day she’d get out here with a shovel and give them proper graves the way they did for Church, but not today. Today was the day that would go down in history as the day the Minutemen fought back, the day they ceased to be a joke and started being something people could have faith in. The Commonwealth would call them heroes, consider themselves in debt to the Minutemen. No doubt there’d be scores of bright-eyed men and women showing up at the Castle within the next few months, hoping to join the faction that demolished the one they’d lived in fear of their entire lives. What would they think if they could see their General now?  
Oh, she’d catch hell from Elder Maxson for this. Choosing farmers with muskets over her brothers and sisters, Liberty Prime standing armed and ready for a war that was over before it started. _But all of that can wait_ , Marie thought as she unstrapped the gatling, laying it carefully beside her and curling herself protectively around it. She pressed a flushed cheek to the metal elevator, grateful for the winter chill against her skin, and within minutes fell into the hushed deep sleep of a little child.

                                                                                                            • • •

 _Marie dreams of peaceful times in the Institute, times when the deep underground isolation and impeccable cleanliness felt safe and exciting. Synths and scientists mill about, though their chatter is unintelligible. One waves to her, but when she waves back he just stares with blank, unfeeling eyes. Looking around, Marie realizes that the scientists have all stopped in their tracks and are boring into her with that same dead expression. Even the synths pause in their work to join in. Marie blinks, and the Institute is empty. The mechanical noises of smoothly functioning machinery are replaced with a low, eerie hum._  
When Marie turns, Father is there. Staring. Watching.  
And then, deafeningly, screaming.  
                                                                                                     • • • 

Marie jerked awake with a startled yelp, her heart beating so hard she could feel it in her stomach and the pounding in her head. The shrieking scream lingered for a few moments before melting into the sounds of life drifting up from Sanctuary, and her panic dissipated. She was home.  
Only when she moved to stand did she notice someone had carefully removed her armor while she slept and tucked a blanket around her. Marie wrapped it around her fist, the ghost of a smile tugging at her lips, and wrapped it snugly around herself. The fabric was warm from the morning sun, easing the ache in her muscles and pounding in her head as she staggered away from Vault 111 and over the small bridge into town.  
Marie checked her Pip-Boy; she’d slept all morning, nearly into noon. She needed a bath, clean clothes, real food, but she found herself idly taking Sanctuary in instead. _Home._ They’d tried hard to make this place a safe haven in the wasteland, patch up her old neighbour’s houses, build beds and plant crops and accommodate the trading hub it became. It had been difficult those first lonely weeks with only Codsworth’s endless optimism to fill the wreckage, but, slowly, Sanctuary gained life. Stray by stray, home by home, weary survivor by exiled Gunner by someone drawn by the lights. Lights strung up with lengths of salvaged wire, coloured bulbs and glowing lanterns lit by those that vowed never to live in the darkness again.  
June finds her with her head pressed against one of the houses, smiling, gripping the blanket around her shoulders, and shrieks in a voice that drives nails into Marie’s skull, “General Thompson! We were worried! Why weren’t you-”  
“June, honey,” Marie interrupts, wincing, “please stop screaming. My head is killing me.”  
June shrinks, as if trying to physically make herself smaller, and apologizes sheepishly. Marie straightens then, forcing herself to grin warmly. June had come a long way from the child soldier she and Danse had found in Quincy, shaking and scared half to death, but it was times like this that reminded her there was still a long way to go. “Don’t worry about it, love. Have you seen Danse today? Or John?”  
June pauses, tapping her fingers against her lips. “I think Mr. Danse is around the common room. Didn’t see Mr. Hancock at breakfast. Still sleeping, I bet.”  
_Yeah, sleeping off another Jet binge._ “Thank you. Henry getting the tavern set up?”  
“Yep,” June replies cheerfully. “I’m off to the storeroom, we’re cutting it close on whiskey. Good to see you, General Thompson.”  
Marie nearly gags at the mention of whiskey, but manages to hold it together long enough for June to continue on her way. She quietly steals away into the undergrowth to retch before re-entering Sanctuary.  
Danse is working at the workbench outside the common room when Marie finds him, his broad back turned to her, holotags clinking gently. His dark hair is still mussed from sleep, and when she wraps her arms around him and presses her face into his back his voice is thick and groggy.  
“Hey there,” he says softly, pausing in his work to thread their fingers together. “Sleep well?”  
In reply, Marie presses him more closely to her body and, before she quite realizes  what’s happening, begins to cry. It robs her of breath, collapses her lungs, hits her with such sudden force she couldn’t stop if she wanted to. It feels like she’s suffocating.  
All at once, Danse turns and reaches to hold her face with large, sure hands. _A soldier’s hands._ He brushes away the hair that sticks to her face, tucks it behind her ears, swipes the tears away as they come. His dark eyes are shine with concern, brows knit, and though it’s clear he’s grasping for the correct words to comfort her it’s a pointless effort.  
“I-I’m sorry I’m s-such a mess,” she sobs, gripping his wrists. “I don’t know w-why I’m like this. I’m sorry. I thought I would d-do better but I’m such a fucking mess on the inside, Danse, I don’t even know how to start expl-”  
Danse sweeps her up easily into his arms then. She tries feebly to push him away, protesting that she’s a grown woman with an army under her command, but gives up once it’s clear he has no intention of setting her down. Marie lets him carry her through the empty common room and into the only bathroom with a working shower, letting her find her footing on the slick tile and moving to shut the door behind him. The mirror hanging on the opposite wall returns an image of a blotchy, tear-streaked face and tangled hair. Marie turns away.  
Losing no time, Danse busies himself with the zipper on her Vault suit, the metal clicking along its track. Marie grabs hold of his hand and moves it away. “I’m not a child,” she jokes unconvincingly, her voice trembling, and Danse’s mouth remains set in a firm, worried line.  
“I thought this might make you feel better,” he murmurs, Marie making short work of her clothes and tossing them in a haphazard pile. Marie sighs when Danse turns the nozzle, hot water sweeping through her hair and pooling in the small of her back, and looks to him gratefully.  
“Much. I needed a shower.”  
Danse’s lips quirk into a small smile when he hands her a bar of soap, and he runs his thumb across her cheek affectionately. “I got grease on you.”  
It’s true; when Marie scrubs at her face, her fingers come away grey with suds. “Gross,” she laughs. It feels good to laugh so she does it again, and when Danse joins in her tears are washed completely down the drain and forgotten. 

. . .

 

“Shit.” Marie pauses in pulling on one of her boots. “Danse, I forgot.”  
“What? What did you forget?” he calls over the sound of running water, glancing back through the steam to where she sits on the bathroom floor.  
“Will you come with me to the Castle today?”  
“The Castle?”  
“Yeah. I, uh...have something important. Someone you and I need to see. Well, pick up, actually.”  
Danse looks over his shoulder again, thick brows furrowed in confusion. “What do you mean, pick up? Who are we seeing?”  
The words flutter in her chest, thrumming against her lips to the frantic beat of her heart and escape breathless, excited. “I figured you’d like to meet your son.”

**Author's Note:**

> I've been plotting this series since April and am deeply emotionally attached to characters that won't show up for several chapters get this away from me
> 
> also i know the Dugout Inn has no stools but the blocking looked nicer in my head please don't hurt me


End file.
